Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HV AC) is the technology of indoor and environmental comfort. (Various references are set forth herein, including in the Cross-Reference To Related Applications, that discuss certain systems, apparatus, methods and other information; all such references are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety and for all their teachings and disclosures, regardless of where the references may appear in this application. Citation to a reference herein is not an admission that such reference constitutes prior art to the current application.)
HVAC systems can comprise a plurality of different, distinct environmental climate control devices, such as two or more of, a) a radiant heater, which can comprise a burner; at least one heat exchanger tube, a tube to carry the combustion gasses, and a reflector to direct the heat that is generated; b) an indirect or direct fired air heater, which discharge heated air directly or through ducts within a building or structure; c) an air conditioner/cooler to condition interior air for recirculation, and d) a dedicated air conditioning/cooling system (DOAS) for delivering outdoor air ventilation that handles both the latent and sensible loads of conditioning the ventilation air (see, e.g., U.S. Provisional patent application Ser. No. 15/406,703, filed Jan. 14, 2017 and entitled HVAC System Comprising Independently Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) And Variable Air Flow (VAF)”). Other HVAC elements can also be included with, or instead of, the HVAC elements listed above, such as exhaust fans, ventilators, etc.
A goal of an HVAC system is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. This goal can be particularly difficult where a large open space such as a warehouse, a shopping mall, storage facility, a distribution center, a factory or an ice rink, that has at least two different zones that each has a different use. For example, where one such area being occupied by people and the other being unoccupied by people but containing products benefitting from cooler temperatures, or where two different zones in a large open space are both occupied but the people using the zones have different needs, for example an ice skating rink where the hockey players benefit from colder air while the watching audience wants to be warmer. Thus, the two different-use zones require different heating, cooling, ventilation, humidity, etc., needs within different areas within that large open space.
Despite decades of effort to increase the efficiency of, and reduce the energy demands of HVAC systems, present HVAC systems are not as efficient as possible and require unnecessary amounts of energy.
Thus, there has gone unmet a need for improved methods of increasing the efficiency and/or energy usage of HVAC systems.
The present systems and methods, etc., increase the efficiency of, and reduce the energy demands of, HVAC systems, and/or provide other advantages.